What is a barcode?

Everyday you see bar codes in the world around you. You see them in supermarkets, on labels, greeting cards and consumable goods. By now you also realize that bar codes have replaced the traditional pricing of products.

Bar codes can be used in every business around the world. For example:

â€¢ to track assets in any building including every desk, computer, telephone, copier and desk accessory
â€¢ to track mail from the time it arrives in the mail room to the time it is delivered to each desk or location within an office
â€¢ to help security guards identify every employee, every door they enter and every room they work in
â€¢ to secure, lock or unlock entrances or exits throughout the plant
â€¢ to manage and track your vehicle fleet and each driver

A bar code can best be described as an “optical Morse code.” Series of black bars and white spaces of varying widths are printed on labels to uniquely identify items. The bar code labels are read with a scanner, which measures reflected light and interprets the code into numbers and letters that are passed on to a computer. Because there are many ways to arrange these bars and spaces, numerous symbologies are possible. Common linear symbologies include UPC/EAN, Interleaved 2 of 5 (I of 5), Codabar, Code 39, and Code 128.